Modern Sales Skills For a Digital Buyer/Elay Cohen - SalesHood, Enteprise, Taylor Swift ~ Spark of Ages Ep 34 - Spark of Ages

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.
Today's guest is Eli Cohen.
Eli is the CEO and co-founderof Saleshood, an AI-driven sales
enablement platform.
As CEO and co-founder ofSaleshood, eli is on a mission
to empower sales and marketingteams to go to market smarter
and faster.
Prior to Sales hood, eli heldkey roles at Salesforce and

(00:28):
Oracle.
As Salesforce's SVP of salesproductivity, he helped scale
revenues from $300 million to $3billion that's a 10x effect and
co-pioneered sales empowermentwith Mark Benioff.
Eli is a recognized leader inthe sales industry, having been
named Salesforce's Executive ofthe Year in 2011 and

(00:48):
acknowledged by EntrepreneurMagazine and LinkedIn as the top
innovative mover and shaker insales leadership and one of the
world's top sales experts.
He's also the author of thebestselling book Enablement
Mastery and Sales Hood howWinning Sales Managers Inspire
Sales Teams to Succeed.
Sharing his insights oneffective sales strategies, eli

(01:08):
is also a graduate from theUniversity of Toronto and the
Schulich School of Business.
Some of the key takeaways youcan expect from this episode the
sales enablement landscape andwhat Eli Cohen did to start
Saleshood.
What it takes to scale revenueand what it took Eli to pioneer
sales enablement at Salesforce.

(01:28):
Key skills for virtual anddigital sales how to leverage AI
and sales enablement.
Eli, welcome to the Spark ofAges.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Great to be here.
Sounds like we got a lot tocover.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Thank you for having me.
I'm so glad you're here.
I know you pretty well.
Over the last few years, youand I have done a lot of events
together.
More recently, we areco-founders with our close
friend AJ, who did one of theearly episodes with us with the
Go-To-Market Leadership Society,so-called GLS, where we have

(02:05):
all kinds of events for thecommunity, and you're, of course
, handling the sales and revenueside.
I'm handling more of themarketing side, so it's been
super fun working with you.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Super fun.
It's been great to get to knowyou and your team and just yeah,
the Go-To--market society is aspecial, special group.
I'm happy to be happy to haveco-founded it with you.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
That's right.
We love starting things andbuilding community with it.
So let's talk about this.
What unmet need in the salesenablement landscape did you
identify?
Like, what got you to leaveSalesforce and really embark on
this entrepreneurial journeywith sales hood?
Because I mean, you look,you're an executive rising up,

(02:47):
stock prices exploding.
What got you to go start yourown business?
Yeah, no space.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, there are moments in
time when you see something andyou see a white space in the
market, and that was my momentof clarity where I thought, okay
, there's a real opportunityhere to bring to market a
turnkey, scalable salesenablement solution, a SaaS
platform, to ultimately deliverto the world what we did at

(03:18):
Salesforce.
So I'll tell you a quick story.
At Salesforce, we pioneeredsales enablement and every month
we were hiring reps, everyquarter we'd add more reps and
we were always trying to bringdown the amount of time it would
take to ramp teams.
Think about it If we could getour salespeople hitting quota
faster, what would happen?

(03:39):
They would close more deals.
And if they closed more deals,what would happen?
The Salesforce stock would goup because we were reporting
contracts and subscribers at thetime.
So there was a directcorrelation between ramp time of
salespeople and the stock price.
So we had that map down, and sothat was why Mark and I we
worked closely and we were doingsome really innovative things

(04:01):
around sales enablement thingslike standing and delivering
meaning, like gettingsalespeople to practice their
pitch, to be able to getcertified on their pitches and
we were doing a lot of theseinnovative sales enablement
programs training, coaching,pitch practice, playbooks and
Mark's vision was want to makesure everybody's on message

(04:24):
meaning he wants, wherever Markwas around the world, whatever
deal he was talking about,playbooks.
And Mark's vision was want tomake sure everybody's on message
, meaning he wants, whereverMark was around the world,
whatever deal he was talkingabout, whichever customer he was
meeting, he wanted to make surethe sales team were saying the
same thing.
Right, that was the essencealignment, rajiv, like alignment
, and so how do you deliveralignment at scale?
Right, and so the story for meis it know it's back in 2011,

(04:44):
2012.
I left early 2013.
And one of my teams was theexecutive briefing center.
That was one of the teams that Iran, and executives would come
in all the time and I was theexec that would welcome them,
and they always asked me thesame question how are you
getting your teams on message?
How are you growing so fast,how, how, how.
And we would tell them thestory you know, like what they

(05:06):
would do in bootcamp, what theywould do with their teams.
And then they would look at meand say, wait a minute, how many
people do you have on your team, eli?
And I'd say, well, about 120people on the enablement team.
And they go oh, we only haveone or two people.
And so that became kind ofapparent to me that we needed to
deliver the same best practicesof sales enablement that we're

(05:26):
doing at Salesforce, but we needto do it more efficiently yet
without losing any of theeffectiveness.
So, rajiv, that was the kernel,that was the essence of it and
that inspired me to kind ofstart SalesHood, found SalesHood
and create the discipline andcreate the category that's now
called sales enablement.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
That's amazing, I think it's.
So.
You see what's happening in thelarger company.
You have a massive team andyou're like, wow, I can boil
that into a platform and offerthat to many, many people.
So when you think about salesrevenue, we'll go to market.
What's the first place you'dstart at?
Is there a framework that youuse, and what have you found to

(06:07):
be important for businesses thatutilize that kind of framework?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right.
So, listen, most companies areat different stages in their
life cycle, and so you've gotsmall companies that need to.
What sales enablement means fora small company is very
different than what it means fora large company, and so you
know, first of all, you got toidentify, you know where are you
in terms of just the life cycleof the business, and it's not a

(06:31):
one size fits all, Rajiv, right.
But to answer your questionspecifically, you know it comes
down to leading and laggingindicators.
And what are the specificmetrics and KPIs that a business
is trying to solve?
And this is what we do.
We sit down with companies andwe try and help them, we try and

(06:54):
guide them on implementing theright kind of sales enablement,
Because there is such a thing asbad sales enablement, Because
if you're going to enable peopleand you're enabling them on the
wrong thing and you're notsolving the right metrics and
KPIs and I'll give you someexamples then you end up wasting
time, wasting resources, repsleave and you wonder why aren't

(07:15):
we hitting our numbers?
Why aren't we growing?
And so, when we look at some ofthe leading indicators, these
are things like sure, it's timeto revenue, it's time to ramp,
but I want to be very specific.
Let me just back up.
The lagging indicators thatmost people kind of tend to
focus on are quota attainmentand win rates and sales cycle
time.
But, Rajiv, those are laggingright.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, that happens months and months after you've
already started something, soyou don't know if you're on the
right path yet, right?

Speaker 2 (07:39):
And if you're a B2B software company and you've got
you know kind of a six to ninemonth sales cycle and you've got
someone who is, you know, 12 to18 month ramp time, like you're
two years later when you findout this person wasn't a fit.
So I want to look at leadingindicators, and those leading
indicators are things like youknow meetings booked, you know
things like pipeline created andthings like pipeline

(08:02):
progression, and so you know, Ithink, as leaders sales and
marketing leaders think abouthow they're going to embrace
sales enablement to ultimatelyachieve kind of great revenue
outcomes.
It's so critical from aframework perspective that you
are getting aligned with yourleadership team on one of the
most important leadingindicators and lagging

(08:22):
indicators and then buildprograms and invest on the
leading indicators and then therest will follow.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Got it.
That's a great way of lookingat it, because you're saying it
could be.
If you do it the other way,you're going to burn two years
and not know where you are.
So now, as you shift towardsvertical right, there's a shift
towards vertical and digitalinteractions with customers,
right, there's a shift towardsvertical and digital
interactions with customers,right.
What are the key skills andcompetencies that sales reps
need to succeed in this newenvironment?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right, and so we're talking 2025.
We're talking.
You know we're post-COVID, youknow we're in a world now where
some of the fundamentals inselling are increasingly more
important.
And you know this, thiswhenever I think about selling
and sales acumen and salesskills, I always think of my

(09:11):
father, right, because you knowmy dad is old school retail
furniture store.
You know, taught me how to sellin Toronto, where I grew up,
and taught me the basics of youknow how you communicate with
customers, how you share acustomer.
You know kind of tell storiesto customers and how you help
customers kind of realize, kindof the solution that you're

(09:31):
trying to sell them, how it'sgoing to fit into their home.
Like, literally, my dad soldfurniture Right, and so, like we
would help our customersvisualize.
And so when we talk about 2025,right, we need to be, we need to
be curious.
So it's so important that we'reasking questions, it's so
important that we are beingauthentically curious and asking

(09:52):
the right questions.
Right, it's so important thatwhen we are engaging with
prospects, that we are curiousnot just about kind of them, but
their industry, theircompetition, and so we're doing
the research ahead of time.
And Rajiv, of course, ai canhelp.
However, you know what the bestsalespeople are rolling up
their sleeves and they'refocusing in on what's most

(10:15):
important to the people thatthey're speaking with.
So curiosity, storytelling, andnow, in this age of you know,
think about it.
I think the stats are now buyers.
When they show up, you know, tothat first call, they're
already 60 to 70% the waythrough in their buyer's journey
.
Right, and so you really haveone shot.
And so, if I'm a salesperson, Igot to make the most of that

(10:38):
meeting and I love this.
How do you turn that meetinginto momentum?
And I like to believe that thebest, the pros out there, when
that meeting happens, they'retreating that meeting like it's
the only meeting they're evergoing to have.
With that prospect, you get oneshot and you actually get five
minutes, and in those fiveminutes, if you haven't set the

(10:58):
agenda properly, if you haven'tdemonstrated you know kind of
that you're curious about theirbusiness and if you're just
pitching, pitching, pitching,then then you know what the
customer is going to go to yourcompetitor.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Right?
No, no one wants the firstmeeting for someone just
launching into their pitch.
Right, they want to know whoyou are, but they want to know
you care about their businessand, frankly, with the tools
that we have today, they expectyou to come in knowing quite a
bit about them.
You can't just do a big assdiscovery call in the first.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, but in 2025, right.
I think it's also interesting,right, because we've got
concepts like digital salesrooms, because we can share
content ahead of time, becausewe can actually track kind of
insights, right.
So, like Rajiv, let's pretendthat I'm selling you, right?
And I know you're, you knowyou're, you're, you're CEO and I
know you know your, rajiv.
Let's pretend that I'm sellingto you, right, and I know you're
your CEO and I know you knowyour company, I know your

(11:47):
company size and I know you'vegot some some interest in some
sales solution issues.
Right, I could if I'm a goodsalesperson, I could give you
some some information to readahead of time.
I could share with you acustomer testimonial video.
I could share with you somecurated content that
demonstrates to you that I'vebeen thoughtful about your
business.
I've been thoughtful about you.
Now, rajiv, you may or may notdecide to look at it, but guess

(12:10):
what, if you do take a look atit, then when you join the call
and we're having a very, verykind of thoughtful, you know,
guided conversation, it's a hey,rajiv, what'd you think of
those stories?
Oh my God, how did you like younailed it?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, you nailed it for me right.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Maybe you didn't watch it right.
So the best salespeople arecurious, they're telling stories
, they're really executingmeetings like clockwork and
they're leveraging the beforeand the after of meetings in a
very, very way, leveraging thelatest in technology.
And those are some of thethings.
Right, I really thinksalespeople today the best ones

(12:48):
are just they're amazing atexecution.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
And so they're ready, they've grounded out and they
pounded oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
No, no, no, there's so much to say, but the last one
, which is so, so, so underrated, is, like this is crazy Sales
communications or just basiccommunications, like how you
write an email, you know how youcommunicate, you know before
and after a meeting, and like Iwant to work with someone that
can write easy to read English,plain English email.
So these are the skills right.

(13:20):
So if you're a salesperson outthere and you're asking yourself
what's it going to take to besuccessful in 25?
, you know curiosity,storytelling, communications,
you know meeting managementbefore, during and after and
leveraging technology so thatway you can share information
with folks, right?
These are some of the things.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Every touch point of a company matters, and that's
where you put the pedal to themetal right, absolutely.
Now, like you mentioned alittle bit about AI and I know
you've transformed your productas well to incorporate AI, so
it's transforming businesseswe're spending more on AI.
If you're going to spend moreon AI, it's going to come from

(13:58):
your IT budget, so you'reprobably going to spend less on
other enterprise applications.
How do you view this world?
I mean, how do you view thiskind of change that's happening?
Do you expect people to spendless overall?
Are they spending more overall?
Are they taking it from oneplace and putting it in the
other?

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
I've got some analystinformation to share and then
I've got some real-life usecases from our own customers to
share.
And first, I think, from amindset perspective,
organizations that are leaninginto leveraging AI to help them
become more effective and moreefficient.
And professionals, whetheryou're a salesperson, whether

(14:35):
you're a marketer, whetheryou're in sales enablement,
whoever you are if you're notembracing AI to be more
effective and efficient, thenyou will be outperformed by your
competition and by your peersin the industry.
So it's a heads up.
If you're not already all overthis, you're already behind.
And so when we look at kind ofthe discussion of like, are we

(14:55):
displacing dollars, like?
There was a stat I saw lastweek from Gartner that basically
shared that.
You know, when I was atSalesforce, we were spending
approximately $2,500 per rep peryear on kind of everything that
they needed to be successful.
Just think about that.
Right, you do that across 5,000salespeople.
You get a feel for what thebudget is.
They're saying that in by 2030,you know that spend is going to

(15:21):
be 4x more, but it's not goingto be more salespeople, it's
going to be more AI solutions,and so companies are now looking
at investing more, but using AIto get the teams to be more
efficient.
Now, rajiv, more efficient inwhat?
More efficient in research,more efficient in communications
, more efficient in personalizedselling, more efficient in

(15:41):
curating All those skills Italked about.
Those skills are increasinglymore important, but now AI makes
you more efficient.
Now a quick, a quick story withour customers.
We analyzed 2024 data.
So we've got an amazing set ofcustomers and we've got you know
, so we anonymized some, somedata and so we looked at, we
looked at efficiency and then welooked at kind of the

(16:03):
effectiveness Right, and so in2024, our customer base saw a
decline by 45 percent in thenumber of enablement.
People.
Think about that for a second.
Forty five percent less enablepeople.
Now you would think, with 45percent less enable people, how
much more enablement do youthink?
How much would enablement havegone down?

Speaker 1 (16:25):
you would think it would be either a commensurate
amount or maybe there's somesavings like 20% Right.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Like you got less people, you're going to do less
enablement.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, 231% increase, increase Because of AI, because
of AI tools.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Because you know, imagine, remember I shared a
little bit about kind of thatessence at Salesforce, where we
were doing pitch practice and wewere running around the world
and sort of find people on thepitch.
Now, with AI and with AIrole-playing, you know you don't
need to have a managerproviding feedback, you don't
need to have an enablementperson.
You know salesperson logs inand it's, and it knows your, it

(16:59):
knows its calendar, the AI knowsthe calendar, it knows what
meetings are coming up, it knows, it knows, it knows and it can
say hey, rajiv, it's been awhile since you practiced your
pitch.
Why don't we go through ittogether and I can sit there and
practice it 5, 10 times and getvery thoughtful, consistent
feedback.
And so AI role-playing was oneof the top use cases for us in
2024.
But it's incredible 45% declinein efficiency in resources and

(17:26):
a 231% increase Real data right.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
So they're flipping it it essentially from people to
tools.
They're flipping it from peopleto tools and maybe getting even
more practice and moreconfirmation and more coaching,
and so really that this is theidea.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
And the benefit.
The benefit is faster, fastertime to revenue.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
So the customer, how much faster are you seeing?
So we're seeing, we.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, so we're seeing let's actually look at a
lagging indicator now, becauseafter 12 months we're seeing win
rates bounce up from about 57to north of 100% increase when
you've got a sales team that isleveraging AI to practice,
leveraging AI to personalize andleveraging AI to actually close

(18:14):
deals, they're winning morebusiness, 57% to 100% of the
time.
That's amazing.
And one of our other customersone of our customers just told
got an email on Friday from StarCompliance.
I can show this publicly.
They shared it.
It and, uh, you know from fromstar compliance, I can show this
publicly.
They shared it and they said,like in quarter, you know, after
leveraging ai, you know, tokind of complement their whole

(18:37):
kickoff experience, they saw a10 lift in win rates, like in
quarter that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
These are real numbers.
That's a big turnaround, right?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
yeah, that's incredible, not like nine months
later, and like somecorrelation causal, this is like
the only thing that changed wasthe reps were doing this 10 to
15 time practice.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
That's amazing.
And so then you can do that.
You can monitor it, you can youknow, you can figure out what
you know and you can do greatcorrelation.
It's amazing.
So when you're so, what are thelike some of the common
pitfalls that companies shouldavoid when they're implementing
these AI-powered salesenablement tools?
So how do you make sure thatthe tools are aligned with the

(19:17):
strategy and objectives?

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
Not all AI is equal, and Ithink first you have to trust
your AI.
What do you guys do to buildtrust?
Well, we guarantee to ourcustomers that the you know we

(19:41):
have a private LLM per customerand when a customer uses
SalesHood's AI, it's contentaware and organizationally aware
and it's a multi-tenant systemand a multi-tenant
infrastructure, so you knoweverything is protected right.
It's not like pointing yourpeople to chat GPT or Gemini and
it's out there it's not, yeah,same thing.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Like I've had that concern when I've shown some of
the demos of what we're buildingand they're like, well, I don't
want that stuff to go back toGemini.
I'm like, no, it's not going togo back to Gemini.
We may be using Gemini or someequivalent, but you're going to
get your own private LLM or even, however we implement it, your
data does not get shared withthe engines or with other

(20:22):
customers.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Exactly so.
Trust, trust, trust.
You got to make sure that it'sonly looking at your data and
that it's not being shared inthe public domain, right, so I'm
leading with trust.
Another lesson from Mark whenit comes to kind of building,
building trust with, with, withcustomers, I think.
I think another lesson forfolks is you know, be careful
when you, when you're evaluatingpartners, that it's really not

(20:48):
a unified experience.
You're evaluating partners thatit's really not a unified AI
experience, it's not a reallylike a unified data model.
So if you've got a company thatyou're evaluating, you know you
really want to look at theirdata model.
Are they a company thatacquired six to 10 companies?
And then are you really goingto get the lift and the benefit
of AI?
Because you want to startworking with companies that have
kind of an end-to-end solutionacross the life cycle of the

(21:11):
solution that you're buying orevaluating, and it'll look at
all the data, it'll look at allthe content.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yes, the architecture versus market.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's the architecture .

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Architecture versus market Architecture, right?
People will say, yes, we have acommon name for my product and
it's really 10 differentdisparate tools that when you
actually work with it, nothingworks together, right?
So, yeah, if you're a bestbreed solution and you do it
right, you can actually make itlook seamless in the way it's
put together with other, withother platforms.
So there's all kinds of coolways of doing that.

(21:43):
So you're right, totally right.
Um, let's talk about majoraccount selling okay, I love it.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
what it?
One of the one of the.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
When I I was in sales , it was early in my career.
I went from engineering intotechnology sales and one of the
first things I did was learn allabout strategic selling, major
account selling, um.
How do you think about that, um, from from the point of view of
you know, it's very differentfrom one-to-one selling for one
sales to one person, to onecustomer, and that customer is

(22:13):
the buyer, the user, et cetera,and the evaluator, whereas
you're in major account selling,you have a whole team.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Right, and then a lot of times as part of that, as
part of leading that effort,it's not all on you as a
salesperson.
You're really the person that'sdriving a whole team of folks
to sell with you, right?
So executives play a pivotalrole in building relationships
as part of this.
So what are the most effectivestrategies for helping to
prepare executives before salesand customer calls to ensure

(22:42):
that there's great alignment inthe way that sales process runs?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, we could spend a whole day on this topic.
There's a lot here, rajiv.
So selling into big accountsand ultimately trying to close
these whale opportunities isn'teasy.
And I think, when we thinkabout these large accounts I'm
going to start with, there's aninternal team and an external

(23:08):
team.
And the internal team you'vegot to make sure your team is
aligned.
And so if I'm a salespersonowning a strategic account, then
you know, if I'm a professional, you know in my job and in my
trade and I'm really a pro hereand I want to make sure my team
is aligned Right.
So you're ensuring that there'salways, you know, clear roles

(23:31):
of responsibility who's on first, who's doing what?
And if you're going to startpulling in internal people from
the organization, then you wantto make sure folks are aligned.
Now, now, when you're closingthese large, these large, large
deals, and we're talking, youknow, depending, let's just,
let's just quantify large, whichis like what does what does
large mean, like like million?
Because it, you know, itdepends.
Let's just, let's just quantifylarge.
What does large mean Like likemillion?
Cause it's depending, right, ifyou're an S.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
It depends Right.
If a small deal right, 20, 40,$50,000 a year, is that a small
deal?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
That's yeah, I'd say the bigger so let's let's just
or the potential to drivemillions of dollars a year for
your company.
So if I'm a salesperson and I'mowning an account and it's my
job to kind of pull in a milliondollars, I'm going to leverage
my internal team, you know, toultimately help me.

(24:20):
You know, do the research, sellvalue and build relationships,
you know, across theorganization, right, that I'm
selling to Now on the externalside, right, what's happening
today is now, you know, there'sa champion, there's an economic
buyer, there's stakeholders,there's influencers, right, and
you've got 10, 20, 30 peoplethat are now going to

(24:40):
participate.
So, as a salesperson, I notonly need to align my team, I
need to now find a champion andthen truly align with, with,
with, with that person and helpthem sell the solution that
we're proposing into theirbusiness.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Right, right.
This is the coach right, thecoach in the account.
It could be your champion inthe account.
It could be a little bit ofboth Right, and so you've got to
help them sell for you.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
You, you've, you've got to help them and listen,
things like Medic helps a lot.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Just real quick Medic is.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
So Medic is a sales kind of process framework and
it's kind of universal in thesoftware industry Metrics,
economic buyer, decisioncriteria, decision process Some
people call it MedPick, and P isthe paper process.
I is implications of pain, c iscompetition, c is also champion

(25:36):
and some people have three C's,which the third C would be
compelling event, and so when asales leader in an organization
embraces medic, they use it tohelp align the internal team
around the key plays you'regoing to run on the strategic
account and then ultimately it'sa guide for how you're going to
work with the champion, howyou're going to win over the
economic buyer, and tools like amutual action plan, tools like

(26:01):
a digital sales room, reallyhelps drive alignment at scale.
Right, because now you've got20, 30 people you're selling to
but you're never really going toknow who they are.
So if you've got a championthat you've partnered with and
they understand how you're goingto help them solve their number
one business problem andthey're truly bought in on you

(26:22):
being kind of the primary andyou've got a great partnership
here, right Now you've got tohelp them sell.
How do you help them sell Rajiv?
You help them set up thisdigital sales room.
You put all the demos in there,the stories in there, you got a
mutual plan and then they startinviting the stakeholders
because they realize, wow, thisis an amazing resource for my
company to help us make adecision faster, right?

(26:44):
And so I've just described kindof what a B2B strategic account
selling process looks like andI got a quick story to tell you,
because the one thing I wanteveryone to understand is, if
you think you're selling yourproduct when you're actually
working a million dollar plusdeal, it's not your product,

(27:05):
it's their top issue and theimpact on that issue to their
business.
And you know, I think it'sreally important that you're
focused in on solving problems.
That's why curiosity iscritical, that's why doing your
research, that's why buildingrelationships, is critical, yeah
, cause you're always connectingback.
You're always connecting back.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
To their biggest problem.
So, while you're in the detailsof whatever you're trying to do
, biggest problem, so, whileyou're in the details of
whatever you're trying to do,always help them connect back.
And this also gets to thatnotion of when a lot of times
these deals start, they movealong and they don't seem to
close right.
They don't close because theyget stalled, there's not enough
urgency for something.

(27:45):
So, like you talked about thisnotion of the compelling event,
right, so you have a compellingevent driving deal urgency.
So what are the best ways touncover that compelling event?
in those large accounts, becauseI mean, many times it just goes
along and along and everybodysays they're in and there's
nothing to drive them.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, compelling event is a really hard concept
for sales teams, success teams,for organizations, to really
embrace, because, for whateverreason, we all have happy ears
and you know, like, for example,rajiv, let's just say I was
selling you and you needed helpwith a program and you said to

(28:25):
me, hey, I got to roll out thisprogram by Jan 1.
And I'd say, okay, great, rajiv, let's talk about that and I'd
understand what the program is,I'd understand, kind of the
impact of you rolling out thisprogram.
And then, in order for us I'mgoing to use a word here to
co-create a compelling event, weneed to really understand more

(28:46):
about your business, yourtimelines, your internal,
because most people think thatJan one event is a compelling
event.
It's actually not.
You got to work backwards andit's called a sequence of events
.
Because then I'd say, rajiv,well, listen, if you're going to
be live by Jan one, this is socritical to your business, let's
go back in time.
You're right.
That means we need to have asystem, a pilot system, a proof

(29:07):
of concept, up and running, youknow, probably by the late
summer.
You know, and the reason why Isay late summer, because on
Labor Day, then all of a suddenpeople.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
So you really got to map back right, because you map
back Well.
First, I think what you'retalking about is you got to
understand what that whensomebody says Jan 1, that may be
the beginning of a calendaryear or fiscal year or something
, but under year or fiscal yearor something.
But in many companies sometimesthey blow past that date and
they don't make a decision bythat date.
So you have to understand whatis significant about the date.

(29:37):
Is it a make or break for them?

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
And then you're going all the way back and you have
all this stuff that could get inthe way.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, by the way, you know what could get in the way.
Here's the thing right, if wedon't work backwards and start
anchoring around some internaldates that are important to your
business because, rajiv, youknow I'm selling you right, you
know your internal IT, you knowhow long decisions take, you
know how important it is to yourCEO, to your decision team,

(30:06):
that they're going to run aproof of concept before they're
going to go widespread thisthing, and so that means that
we're doing a Q4 rollout, and ifwe don't insert that as a
co-created event, then you knowwhat happens.
Things happen and maybe you doan internal solve.
Maybe your IT team says, hey,you know what, we could probably

(30:27):
build something, maybe, ormaybe the priority really isn't
the top priority, but if I'm asalesperson and, and if we're,
if I'm working with you, rajiv,and your executive team, and
we're collaborating and we'reand, and you know what and like,
and if I miss that septemberdate, right, and if you go
silent on me in september, thenat least I know that's

(30:49):
information versus if we weretracking January and then I got
no way to make up for it thatI've completely missed my number
.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Exactly, and I think that I find that on both sides
like there's the happy ears onthe salesperson side, the happy
ears on the executive side wewant to see that pipeline grow,
we have numbers to hit and thenon the other side the client
thinks I find this a lot thatthe people we're selling to are
very optimistic about theirability to push things through.
They don't realize how manylayers they have to go through

(31:19):
and who they have to persuadeand frankly and you get annoyed
at them, but it's not theirfault, that's your fault, that's
your job to help themunderstand that and to help them
work together with you.
So I love your notion ofco-creation.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
And, by the way, you've got a very large
community of amazing marketersout there and marketing does and
should play an active role insales enablement right, and they
do.
They create playbooks, theycreate competitive battle cards,
but here's something I'm notseeing enough marketers leaning
into is documenting compellingevents, documenting trigger

(31:55):
events by role, by persona, andthen driving urgency and
providing those resources andassets in terms of how to run a
contest To help drive it.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, help drive it Right.
I think you always have to haveI mean, at least I find this in
my world have a bunch of eventsthat you can get more touches
with or to force moreinteractions with at a senior
and the actual user, buyer Justbecause you sold the senior
person on it doesn't mean theone that's actually going to use

(32:24):
it is going to be on your side.
What are you doing to wake themup?
A lot of that is marketing'sjob and I find companies don't
do that in terms of their buyerdefinition, in terms of
understanding how important itis to accelerate the endpoint.
So it's just huge.
It's just huge.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
And, by the way, here's what Medic does right,
and Medic teaches people to havethese kinds of conversations
with the champion.
And therefore, and andtherefore, Rajiv, when we get a
call and we've got a mutualaction plan and we've written
down these milestone dates, thenI can get curious with you,
rajiv, and I can say well, rajiv, we've got this August 15th
date, which is kind of the, thelaunch date.

(33:03):
So who else in yourorganization needs to?
It needs to be aligned withthis date, and what other people
do?
We need to make sure that thisis going to, you know, kind of
meet their requirements and and.
And you mentioned that mary isthe economic buyer.
How aligned is this with hertop priorities?
Right, and your answers willtell me, yeah, and ultimately
qualify whether this is real ornot.
This deal, and and and if wecan't have that open

(33:25):
conversation, you know two,three months before getting
signature, and we're never goingto get signature on an msa or a
contract right, not for amillion dollar deal.
Not for a million, yeah, or $10million, a huge deal right,
whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, we have to be working together and have really
open conversations.
So I love this.
It's like we're getting toshare all of our best techniques
.
I love this.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Right.
Oh, it's great.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
You're awesome with this and you get to live in it
every day.
So I mean, I just wonder, like,if I go back to what got you to
do what you wanted to do, whatgot you to this point right?
A lot of times you just somepeople are accidental
entrepreneurs, some peoplearen't.
So, like, did you always knowthat you wanted to work in this
kind of technology field?
Was there like a specificmoment, was there a project that

(34:11):
got you to go this way, likewhile you were at salesforce?
Or did you know from as a kidthat this is the way you were
going to go?
You mentioned your father had afurniture business.
Yeah, so, uh, how'd youdiscover this?
What sparked you?

Speaker 2 (34:20):
so discover what you mean, like the entrepreneurial
bug, the entrepreneurial bug andto go into something
entrepreneurial with thetechnology platform you know
when, when I was so yeah, listen, watching my father, you know,
kind of run a furniture storeand build something from nothing
, and you know my dad wentbankrupt, you know, and he had

(34:40):
to redo it again, so I got tosee him rebuild from nothing.
It's hard right, and I thinkand that's something we
celebrate right.
So I bring it up now, becausesometimes it happens you have a
bump in the road and that'ssomething we celebrate Right.
So I bring it up now becausesometimes it happens you have a
bump in the road and it's notthat, but it's how you recover
and what you do from it.
I think it's so critical.
You know, I guess I always likedtech.

(35:01):
You know I had a computer.
You know I always like videogames, but like you know when,
when, when the Internet kind ofcame around I'm going to date
myself now, but like we'retalking like the mid-90s and
when the net came around, andyou remember like the way you
used to connect to the internetthrough the dial phone, and you
know, when I did my MBA, youknow I decided that I wanted to

(35:23):
do an entrepreneurial componentto my MBA and where we actually
partnered with a local digitalagency and that was kind of how
I, that was one of my credits.
And so, and so I was thereworking with this quote unquote
internet company and I rememberI remember we were in this is 94

(35:43):
.
I was, we're in the room andwe're evaluating their company
and the ultimate credit is togive them a business plan so
they can actually turn theirdigital agency into a real
business.
And the CEO kind of wrote on theboard like e-commerce, and said
like here's a word, can we justtalk about what this word means
?
And that's when I knew thatlike we were so early in this

(36:06):
internet world and that I reallywanted to be a part of it and I
knew I needed to be connectedto it.
And so I left Toronto and movedto San Francisco because I
wanted to be where I thoughtkind of the heart and soul of
technology was softwaretechnology, silicon Valley.
And I knew I was coming downhere to start something.
I knew I was coming down hereto build legacy and I worked at

(36:29):
a startup, worked at Oracle,oracle, and was always creating,
but always had this, this itch.
And it wasn't until that momentwhen I realized you know what,
there's a market here for salesenablement and it actually I can
leverage all of my life'sexperiences to give back to the
sales world, to give back tocompanies so they can actually
execute sales as best as theycan.

(36:51):
And that was it right.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Did it sort of coalesce with you while you were
at Salesforce.
It was like this magic moment.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Oh, for sure right.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Did you always go in and say I want to be an
entrepreneur, or did theentrepreneurial moment come to
you?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Well, the golden handcuffs of Salesforce.
It's hard right, You're gettingoptions rsus absolutely and did
very well and I'm super gratefulto the company, to mark, to our
customers and to just righttime.
It was 2005, right?
I?
When I left oracle, folks atoracle were looking at me like I
was crazy, like why would youleave and go to that like cloud?

(37:29):
It's not a real thing.
Literally, that's what theytold me in my exit interview and
I go back to my dad.
He always reminded me don'tforget where you're from, don't
forget the basics of selling,and I think I always had him in
my ear and I speak to him a lot.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Is that your voice?
I speak to him all the time.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
My dad's still going and I love him and he's a very
big part of my life, so is mymom and so is my family.
I want to make sure thateveryone, but I think I'm
fortunate that my wife, I think,when we sat down and I said,
listen, I really want to buildthis because I think we can
really change the way companiesgo to market.

(38:11):
We can really change kind ofthe sales profession and elevate
it in a whole new way with tech.
And this is even pre-AI right.
It was mobile, it was social,it was data right.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
It was just like it was a in an interesting way.
You've you've by being therebefore ai, as ai comes in, you
can.
You're so embedded in thatdomain knowledge of what works
and what doesn't right.
Your folks have been writingcode, they've been developing it
in a particular way and all ofa sudden ai comes about and now

(38:45):
it's more about your expertiseand knowledge and being applied
in a dramatically faster waythan ever before.
Right?
So now you're already in andnow you got to make the
transformation.
But you're embedded in thatknowledge and you're in a
community in Silicon Valley andaround the world where that's
coming at you day in and day out, so you can jump on it quickly.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
It's true, you asked me a question earlier and you
said you know what shouldcompanies look for when they're
looking for to kind of lean intoAI?
And you know you do bring up agreat point the idea that an AI
is purpose-built, andpurpose-built for specific use
cases, for specific outcomes.
I think trust is important, Ithink unified data model is

(39:27):
important, but I think beingpurpose-built is probably number
one.
And yeah, we've got, you know,years of experience living it at
Salesforce and then you know, adecade here with SalesHood and
it's a unified data model, so itenables us to go real fast.
And there's so much great AIout there.
But you know what you got toask yourself what problem are
you trying to solve, how quicklydo you want to solve it and

(39:49):
what resources do you have toactually bring it to market in
your go-to-market?
And uh, those are questions I'dbe asking myself.
So, uh, yeah, I appreciate thatrecognition.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Thanks for jake would ai be your biggest change that
you've seen over the career?
You mentioned the internetearlier.
Is there, like a surprise, uh,being in being in silicon
valley's come you know?

Speaker 2 (40:09):
just thinking broadly over the course of your career
here in Silicon Valley, right,right, the big megatrends, you
know, I think.
Well, first, like SaaS, rightthe idea that because I don't
know if you remember ASP there'sapplication service providers.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
That was kind of like in 99 when I first came down
here.
You know we were buildingserver farms and that doesn't
scale Right.
And so you know what Benioffdid with Salesforce was, yeah,
it was CRM, but it was reallyproving out multi-tenancy and it
was kind of so that was A right, that was a big shift Right.
And then another big shift youknow that I remember was you

(40:51):
know I mobile, right, you knowmobile is, is, is so big, and I
think, uh, you know you rememberwhen, when steve jobs came out
with the ipad, like that waslike like whoa, you mean you can
like have your computer on anipad and you can run around and
and so mobile was big.
And then social right, all of asudden, you know we're social
right and and then, and thendata became so central to the
story.
So these were, all you know,super, super interesting, big,

(41:14):
big, mega trends that we allexperienced.
But I think what AI does, andwhy I think AI is the biggest,
is it actually goes back furtherin time and I think we could
take the best of what we had inthe 60s and the 70s and 80s with
solution selling I'm talkingabout sales right now.

(41:34):
Right, we could take the bestand the promise of automation
and we didn't really quiterealize the benefits of
automation, you know, I think.
But Gen AI and AI now takeskind of the best of old school,
the best of new school, right,data, video, mobile right.

(41:55):
And brings it all together anddelivers it to people like in
milliseconds.
Right, because we created thisworld where there's so much data
, there's so much content, andnow we've confused people.
We've almost it's almost likeparalysis a little bit, because
customer-facing selling time hasdropped, productivity has
dropped quota attainment Allthese benefits that we'd hoped

(42:17):
to achieve haven't yet happened.
And now we are realizing thepromise, because now, if you're
leveraging AI in your business,you can get answers to questions
like you've never before.
Your team can get feedback onthings.
Your buyers are going to beable to get answers to their
questions, and this is amillisecond.
So to me, this is the biggestshift.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
This is the biggest yeah.
So I like how you lay it out,eli, how it all comes together
right.
You wouldn't have it if all thesystems weren't connected
together.
If you didn't have this ASP orcloud infrastructure, you didn't
have the ability to get accessto information from wherever you
are, to collect data from allthese different touch points.
So it has to come together, andAI enables it to come together
super quickly, so that's a greatway of putting it All right,

(43:08):
Eli.
Now it's time for the game, thegame.
So you may not know this, butthis is a special feature of the
Spark of Ages.
So welcome to the Spark Tank,where we ignite the power of
association and uncover thehidden connections within the
minds of today's mostinfluential leaders.
And today we're thrilled tohave Eli Cohen, a master of

(43:30):
sales strategy and the architectof revenue growth, joining us.
So today isn't your typicalsales pitch.
This is where the art ofpersuasion meets the spontaneity
of thought, where salesenablement collides with the
power of intuition, where asingle word can unlock a cascade
of insights.
Our minds are wired to connectthe dots, dots to find patterns

(43:52):
of the seemingly random, andoften it's the unexpected leaps
that we discover the mostprofound truths.
So think of it as a journeythrough the landscape of
experience, where each word actsas a stepping stone, revealing
the underlying principles thathave driven Eli's success.
This is the ultimate wordassociation challenge, where
every response could uncover anew approach to sales excellence

(44:15):
.
So basically, eli, here's howit works.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Okay, tell me I love it, because you got me excited.
I'm curious.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
I know you're dying, here's the big one.
I throw out a word.
You respond with the first wordthat comes to your mind.
No filters, no hesitation.
Okay, now respond to your wordand we'll keep this chain of
associations flowing for atleast three or four volleys, and
the only rule that we have toembrace is spontaneity, to let
your mind make these unexpectedleaps.
So ready to see where yourmental agility takes us, eli.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
I'm ready to see where this goes.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Let's do it here we go, here we go, pipeline Money.
Clothes Open.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Scale Sales Upsell.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Cross-sell Customer journey Buy more Okay.
Ipo Saleshood, saleshood.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Love that, love that.
All right, okay, ipo Saleshood,saleshood Love that Love that.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
All right, okay, here's the next one, okay.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
How do we do on that last one?

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Our listeners should tell us They'll comment Okay, we
always have fun with thesethings, okay.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
I love it.
Let's do it again.
Let's do another one.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Objection Handling Concern.
Let's do another one objectionhandling concern, problem
solving uh interaction lovecustomers build relationship for
sure I love it.
Okay's go to the next one Story.

(45:48):
Customer Brand Apple iPhone.
Love it.
Brilliant Mind.
It's a you know, I, when Ithink about Apple, I think as
you do.
It's.
It's like we talk about mergingwith devices.
Haven't we already, haven't wealready merged with the device?

(46:09):
Call our iPhone.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Right, we have, and there will be a time in our
lifetimes I believe, and forbetter or for worse, that it
will be even more integrated.
I think we're getting there, Ithink, hopefully it keeps us on
a good path.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
All right, here's another good one.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Failure Inevitable.
Hurts like hell.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Oh God, how about this Hurts so good.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, john Cougar Mellencamp.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Back in the 80s Hurts , so good it is, john.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Cougar Mellencamp, right, I think it is.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, john Cougar Mellencamp Hurts so good.
Come on, baby, make it hurt sogood.
Sometimes love doesn't feellike it should, so there you go.
Failure is what gets us there.
All right, here's the last onewe'll do.
Momentum, keep it going.
Sales cycles Shorter,relentless.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Push Pull Marketing.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Marketing, nice Complementary.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Services.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Scale.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Execution.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Measure success KPIs.
Oh, I like that KPIs measuresuccess for KPIs all the time.
How often do you make your teamlook at the KPIs?
Is it on a weekly basis as partof your weekly calls?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
values, methods, obstacles and metrics.
So we created a V2 hood processvision, values and objectives
and outcomes and so we trackthem, and so I am sending out a
weekly note to my team sometimesvideo, where we're highlighting
how are we doing on our V2 hoodand on our top metrics and KPIs
on a weekly basis.
We look at them on an e-staffcall weekly and these metrics

(48:13):
range from pipeline metrics toadoption metrics, to sales
metrics, to engineering metricsaround things like.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, that's a great way to go, Because I think then
people can see that and whenthey see it, they start looking
for those hidden gems that canhelp boost the numbers or just
notice things that they candrive back in.
And I have that expectation ofmy team that whatever metrics
you're supposed to drive, you'regoing to grind on them, because

(48:44):
inside of that is some magicalmoment.
Side of that is some magicalmoment Because I'm always
inspired by my clients.
We have clients that are doingwhat you would consider.
Many of them are superhigh-tech, cool AI companies,
but some of them are basicbusinesses and the difference
between one person and anotheris the one that really grinds it

(49:05):
.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
I remind my team on a regular basis.
We do monthly hoodie calls witha monthly kind of all-hands
calls with the company, and I'mconstantly reminding my team.
You know like, here are the 10metrics and KPIs that are
critical to our business,critical to our growth, critical
to our success.
If you're not directlyimpacting one of them, you got

(49:26):
to talk to your manager.
Or you got to talk to me, right?
This is like you got to talk toyour manager.
You got to talk to me, right?
This is like you got to beconnecting yourself, not like
some.
If you're not impacting one ofthem, let me know, because then
you're doing something offthat's important so critical
regime I'm sure

Speaker 1 (49:38):
we run our businesses very similarly yeah, it's, it's
, uh, it's a it's well, we wehave the aspect of being
involved in the day-to-dayoperations.
You're probably helping todrive and close deals, like I am
, but you also have to be thatexecutive that gets your people
to look at what focus on whatthey're supposed to do.
All right, we always ask guestslike you, eli, to name a

(50:03):
historical person, event orperson that inspires you.
Right and early on in thequestionnaire you answered Steve
Jobs and Taylor Swift.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Right, wow, two different names.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
I love it.
So you know, I've always admiredkind of the, the, the
creativity and the vision thathas come out of Steve Jobs and
Apple and a how he created,innovative and then and then
left and then came back and tookit to new heights, and and for

(50:37):
him to be able to imagine aworld where you're carrying
everything with you, you know,video, audio, phone, and this,
this simple iPhone device, Ithink, is transformed, has
transformed living, and to methat's ultimate legacy and in a
form, in a minimalistic formthat is just beautiful, whether

(51:00):
it's an iPhone, a Mac, an iPadand whatever else comes out of
that world.
I think has always, always,always, inspired me.
And when I create, when wecreate, when we communicate,
I've always got, like the jobsfilter on, you know, less words,
less graphics, a simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple
, and so that's always been, youknow, an inspiring factor for

(51:23):
me.
And then you know what, andmost people have someone like
that right and you probablywouldn't expect an executive
like me to say but also I've gotthis Taylor Swift kind of
energy right and you know myyounger daughter was begging me
to go to the Taylor Swiftconference and it's conference
Look at me.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
You can't leave it.
Well probably at that concertyou were just entertained.
It probably was a learningadventure for you.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
You know what, and this is where I'm going to take
you because you know, I just,and for whatever reason you know
, I think it turns out, a friendof mine, you know, he ended up
having tickets because Icouldn't justify for Taylor
Swift 3k ticket, right, that wascrazy.
And it turns out he had ticketsat cost.
I'm like, boom, let's go.
So I became a student of TaylorSwift and listened to her music

(52:11):
, right and so, and so got itRight.
So the music is interesting,and and so, but that wasn't
really the big learning for me.
So there there we are.
My daughter and I were in thestadium, 50,000 people, and all
of a sudden, you know it's fiveminutes before Taylor Swift
comes out.
And All of a sudden, you knowit's five minutes before Taylor

(52:31):
Swift comes out, and I couldn'thear myself think, and the room,
the stadium, the energy, likeit was like amazing.
And for the next three hours,that same and everyone stood up,
everyone was dancing and,through the art of visual
storytelling, you know, taylorSwift kept us all kind of

(52:52):
enthralled and eating out of thepalm of her hand.
It was incredible and I becamea Swifty, wow, and I became you
know what.
So you went through it forthree hours, three hours is a
lot of time to be at a con.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Three plus.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Listening to one artist, one artist, and it kept
you going Watching artistwatching, absorbing,
assimilating the this experience, and and then, and then to
leave and realize that this wasa movement.
And then to watch taylor swift,now, like taking a step back as
an entrepreneurial genius, toturn this property into a movie,
to turn this property into somany other ways for her to just,

(53:29):
you know, kind of continue todrive her mission and her vision
of how she wants to elevate,you know, teenagers and elevate
the music industry.
And you know, love or hateTaylor Swift.
What she's done is absolutelyand I was, I was on a plane, I
was on a plane next to a CFO.
You know, keep him nameless andhe may not want to come next to
a CFO.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Keep him nameless.
He may not want to come out asa Swiftie.
Is that what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Keep him nameless and what he said.
And all of a sudden, you knowwe're small talk on the plane
and the plane takes off and I'vegot my Taylor Swift playlist
and I'm looking at the song MissAmericana that I'm listening to
.
Adam, I didn't mean to look.
I look and I'm looking at thesong Miss Americana that I'm
listening to.
Adam, I didn't mean to look.
I look, his phone is sittingdown, there's an empty seat
between us and the same song.

(54:13):
No way, miss Americana, no way.
I tap him on the shoulder, I'mlike, and I show him my phone.
He unbuttons his shirt and he'sgot a Taylor Swift t-shirt
underneath.
Whoa.
And he tells me a story that hegets up on stage at his kickoff
and he grabs the mic Everyone'slaughing because his walk-up
song is a Taylor Swift song andhe says here's a performer,

(54:34):
here's an entrepreneur thatgenerated a billion plus in
revenue without AI and got thewhole room laughing hysterically
.
And so boom.
And there are many, many, manyCEOs in Silicon Valley that are
also Swifties.
They're also Swifties in theSilicon Valley that are also
Swifties.
They're also Swifties.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
And I think it's that respect over her drive for
perfection and connection.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah girl, creativity , creativity, creativity.
Think of the community she'sdeveloped.
My daughter.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
she's a crazy Swifty, she knows every song.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Well, I think we have the next time, Taylor Swift's
on tour it looks like we've gota date night with you and my
daughter and your daughter andwe'll make it happen.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
That sounds like a lot of fun.
It sounds like a lot of fun.
I like how she is so genuine.
She does consistently try toconnect with her audience.
So that's the.
She's not just trying tomonetize, so I think that's
brilliant.
You're also, by the way, you'realso into music yourself.
You're also, by the way.
You're also into music yourself.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
You're a DJ, you know .
I've had some fun with music.
I went to your office.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
You had tons of old vinyl hanging up on the walls.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Old school DJ Soulful , funky house.
I love female vocals, I lovetribal music.
I love when, like, disco andsoul come together and you can
close your eyes and you're onthe dance floor and you're
dancing and you're vibing andyou're feeling it and you're
doing that all night long.

(55:57):
That's a happy place for me.
You know, I've DJed at Burningman.
I've DJed a lot of undergroundlofts in San Francisco.
I've DJed a bunch of clubslofts in san francisco.
I've dj'd a bunch of clubs.
And it's that moment, like two,three in the morning, when I
can look around everyone's justgoing, going, going and uh, and
I'm helping making that happen,that's that's.
I love that.
And uh, you know I've, I'mcommitted to to djing again and

(56:21):
uh, doing it, bringing theworlds together.
How do I bring the salescommunity together with go to
market, together with my vinyland just create this amazing
experience for people to letloose and have fun.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
That's awesome.
That's awesome how it all comestogether.
So now, if you were to, youknow, you mentioned a lot about
how you grew up.
If there was a billboard withany message, any message to your
younger self, what would it say?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
You know what?
Always, always trust yourinstinct, always, trust your gut
.
It's, it's, it's never failedme.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Always trust your gut .

Speaker 1 (56:54):
And is that?
Is that like when push cuffsbecomes a shove?
When, even though there may bedata all over the place, it's
just it's informing yourintuition?

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Sometimes data has convinced me to make the wrong
decision.
And where?
Where had I trusted my gut fromthe beginning, the decision
would have been the right one.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Why is that?
Can you give me an example?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Well, listen, Salesforce right.
So leaving Oracle going toSalesforce, leaving Salesforce
starting SalesHood?
Right?
I think these are examples,right?
I think sometimes, look atSteve Jobs.
Right, there's no data thatwould have said an iPhone is
going to change the world.
You just got to trust your gut,right?
Like there's no data that wouldhave said an iPhone is going to
change the world, you just gotto trust your gut, right, Like,
I think, when we decided tobuild out features at SalesHit.

(57:37):
Sometimes all the data in theworld and all the customer
feedback in the world will kindof point us in another direction
, but my gut just tells me, youknow.
A very specific example isdigital sales rooms.
Right?
Did salespeople need anothersales tool?
Yeah.
Did buyers need another tool?
Did they need a place toactually collaborate?

(57:57):
I mean no, no, like they neverwould have raised their hand.
However, today, salespeople thatare using technology to
collaborate with their buyers inthis new category called
digital sales rooms, they'rewinning deals, winning more
deals and they're buildingbetter relationships right yeah,
no one would have told me to dothat no one know the the data
told me not to do it right andand, but we had to do it and

(58:19):
it's actually the future of mybusiness.
So, uh, that's super.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
So many, so many examples, so many examples and I
think when you go back to yourentrepreneurial example, you,
like you, know you're talkingabout, um, the expected value of
moving from one company toanother, if you already have and
Silicon Valley is very good atlocking you up, especially the
bigger ones, they understand thegame and they give you this
expected value equation thatmakes much more sense than it is
to go strike out on your ownand you went with your gut and

(58:44):
you went with what wasinteresting for you.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
I'll tell you one more example, one more
interesting one.
You know, when we were like,listen, we're mostly self-funded
as a business, and we weredoing the rounds up and down the
peninsula talking to VCs, andthe VCs were telling me no joke,
you know, this is 2014, 2015,.
That the sales tech marketisn't a big enough market for
standalone companies to besuccessful.

(59:10):
That's what they were tellingme.
Therefore, if you want to takesales hood, maybe take the sales
out of hood, maybe call it hood, and maybe go do like employee
engagement and employee training, then maybe we'll fund you.
I'm like are you kidding me?
There are 15 millionsalespeople that need a tool to
actually sell, and so, anyway,there's a real's another example

(59:32):
for you.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Regina.
I love that.
That is fantastic, and you'vebuilt self-funded since, which
is amazing to do because you'regetting your validation every
day right, every day.
You got to go keep fighting.
Okay, what's your personalmoonshot?

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Okay, what is?
What's your personal moonshot?
I try not to distract my mindinto too many things outside of
the focus of what we're doing,so I don't get an opportunity to
kind of explore what I'm aboutto share right now.
But I'm going to share itbecause you know, sometimes when
you put things out there,they're even you increase the
chances of it happening.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
It'll manifest, it'll manifest.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Listen again.
We're maniacally focused oncontinuing to grow Salesforce
and we're looking for ways togrow and we've got a whole bunch
of cool stuff happening.
But I got this dream.
I love community and I alsolove concepts of sustainability
and I want to create a communityalmost like a kibbutz, a

(01:00:29):
kibbutz a community almost likea kibbutz you know, a kibbutz
like community, cali kibbutzI've called it in my head where
people can come together.
You know what you want to comehang.
You know you want to get awayfrom it all.
Come, come to come to eli's.
Eli, you might, might are ourcali kibbutz, right and this is
a place.
This is a place.
It's close to nature, so it'sprobably on the coast.

(01:00:49):
You want to be able to smellthe sea, be at one with nature,
and it's a community stillforming the idea here, richie.
But like, yeah, I'll holdretreats for sales executives,
yes, I'll hold retreats forstartups, yes, I'll hold family
retreats.
But I really want a place asI'm looking at the next chapter
of my life.
Again, I'm not trying to getdistracted, that's right, but
like a place where people cancome, have a destination, safe

(01:01:12):
place, be at one with nature.
And you know what?
There'll always be great foodin the kitchen, we'll always be
hanging outside, there'll alwaysbe fires going and fire pits
and guess what?
Vinyl will always be playingtoo.
Always be playing great music.
But it's just a great place tobring people together.
And that's really where I'mthinking of what's next for us
here.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
I can't think of a better way to close this episode
of Spark of Ages.
So, eli, that was justbeautiful.
I so enjoyed talking with youtoday, so this was fantastic, oh
my God, so fun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
And Rajiv, you're always invited right.
There will always be.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
And, by the way, you're always invited right,
there'll always be and, by theway, there'll always be I have a
place to go.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
I always want a place to go.
It's going to have like a mainhouse, but there'll be a bunch
of these like smaller houseswhere people can come and hang
out for some time too.
So you're always welcome, rajiv, and I really appreciated your
questions and this conversation.
It's super fun.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
It's great to kind innovation, what it takes to
take what you believe in and getit out there in front of folks
and, eli, you're an excellentexample of that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Thank you so?

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
much, I appreciate it .

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Well, that was a lot of fun.
Eli is definitely a trueentrepreneur, a true pro.
I think if there's any messagethat I can take back and share
with all of you, it's typicallywhen you're doing these sorts of
companies, especiallytechnology companies, the first

(01:02:52):
thing you think about is how doI get funding and how do I build
from that?
And you would think a guy likeEli, who comes with a fantastic,
phenomenal, high pedigreebackground, working at really
the company that turned salesinto software right and is known

(01:03:13):
for it, is, of course, builtmuch more than that Easily get
around and grow.
And you know, the mentalitywasn't there at the time.
So he went and forged ahead andbuilt his company up and said,
yeah, it doesn't matter, I maynot need your capital, but I'll
keep going.
And he's had to compete againstmany well-funded competitors
and if you look at his customerlist, it's remarkable.

(01:03:43):
So it's a testament to hisbelief, his drive, his desire to
make this type of connectionhappen so that companies can be
much more efficient and muchmore effective in terms of
bringing their innovation ortheir products to others.
That's what I take away, andthe fact that he's competing and
adding AI to it and stilladding great clients and growing
.
It's amazing.
Plus, he's just a great guy tobe around, so I encourage you.
Very approachable, really easyto talk to.

(01:04:04):
How he appeared today is how heis in normal life, so I think
that's something really awesome.
And to hear him get excitedabout Taylor Swift, it's
remarkable because you canappreciate that artistry at
multiple levels.
I just want to make sure, whenyou listen to these types of
conversations, you let me knowhow we're doing with them.

(01:04:27):
I want to know when you'recommenting on Apple, spotify,
youtube, feel free to give mefeedback, and there's ways of
getting to me individually oryou could just leave it out
there.
It really makes a differencefor me.
So take a moment, rate it,comment.
We're everywhere podcasts canbe found.
So the show is produced bySandeep Parikh and Anand Shah.

(01:04:50):
Sandeep Anand has really done afantastic job of working right
now with me.
Sandeep has been dealing withthe LA fires and his impact on
his life and his family and he'sone of you know, hundreds of
thousands of people dealing withthe same problem and it's
incredible what he and othershave to go through.
I just went to a fundraiserlast week put on by a common

(01:05:12):
friend for LA, and it's great tosee how much response there is
for this, and it's only going toget more difficult as these
folks rebuild their lives.
Production Assistance is byTaryn Talley.
It's edited by Sean Marr andAidan McGarvey.
I'm your host, rajiv Parikhfrom Position Squared, an
AI-focused growth marketingcompany based in Silicon Valley.

(01:05:35):
Come visit us at position2.com.
This is an effing funnyproduction and I really look
forward to seeing you next time.
Remember folks, be ever curious.

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Modern Sales Skills For a Digital Buyer/Elay Cohen - SalesHood, Enteprise, Taylor Swift ~ Spark of Ages Ep 34

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Modern Sales Skills For a Digital Buyer/Elay Cohen - SalesHood, Enteprise, Taylor Swift ~ Spark of Ages Ep 34